Jacob and Alexander refrained from shouting as they walked back to Turner to discuss how they would go about looking for the missing two, heavy steps led the way back to Turner.
“Turner both Brian and Riley have gone missing, we looked around the surrounding. There were some marks left behind by bodies being dragged away further back into the forest. Both of us wanna follow the tracks and locate them and the abductors. What do you think?” Alexander asked Turner his voice already coloured with determination.
“Lets see where the tracks lead us and then decide from there, we do not even know what we are facing and forgive me for saying so if the two even are alive.” Turner replied taciturnly
Alexander took a deep breath before giving a nod to Turner, with nothing to pack the trio quickly set off back into the forest with the three suns already hanging above them beating them relentlessly with oppresive heat. The difference between night and day felt like how one might feel when in a desert, one is wickedly cool and the other a constant drying heat-wave. As the trio walked in they finally found more clues as to the mysterious abductors, there were pieces of meat hewn about the withered forest. Due to the heat the meat already started to smell, the stench reminiscent of fecal matter food mixed with the eye stinging sensation of mustard. Jacob started gagging and quickly moved a distance away from the source of his reddened eyes, Alexander threw up on the ground only bile could be seen due to a lack of food throughout the whole of yesterday and today morning, Turner having the least reaction amongst the trio simply tightened his lips and trudged through the smell waited for the other two a safe distance further into the forest. Alexander slowly wade through the smell even the rotten meat did not manage to turn his chiseled face unseemly, somehow managing to look brilliant even then. Meanwhile Jacob slowly made a detour around the meat to where Turner stood further down the tracks.
“Turner my goodness how did you not react to that nauseating smell, it smelled like week old leftovers mixed with ammonia and brought to a boil. Even the slums back in my home smelled way better than that.” Alexander commented on Turners’ resilience as he continued to gag even when the source of the smell was far away from the trio now its presence still lingered in Jacob and Alexanders’ nose. Jacob who was not far behind also made empty retching noises as he caught up.
“If they laid these meat everywhere we might as well give up now only Turner can make it through without even sweating.” Jacob chimed in. However this was the first sign of the abductors, the trio do not know the distance between them and the abductors currently but this should be a good sign. The trails were still present and no blood was seen on their way over so no one got their limbs chopped off for snacks yet, a rumble occured in his stomach as the word snack crossed Jacobs’ mind. It successfully sparked 2 more rumbles in both Alexander and Turner, the thought occurred to the trio that the meat currently strewn about the ground was edible. The lingering putridness in their nose reminded Jacob and Alexander made their footsteps hasten away to the tracks, a small smile could be found on Turner as he followed the two.
After the better parts of 2 hours as the Suns had rose high above bathing the trees with overlapping shadows, as the trio moved during the 2 hours they noticed the forest returning to its originally vibrant and loud green the further they followed the tracks into the forest. Trepidation resonated in the trio as they did not know what the increasing greeneries signified and that terrified them.
However a good news was that the trio started seeing animals here and about the forest, during the 2 hours they caught sight of a deer, it looked different from a normal deer with blue hides and four eyes instead of the usual 2 even the odd looks of the deer did not stop them from salivating and causing their stomach to ache longingly. The trio looked to each other and discussed quickly about their plan before splitting up to surround the deer. Whether they would be able to fully fight whatever or whoever abducted Brian and Riley would depend on whether they can get this deer there might not be another animal big enough to feed them all at once the group split up to surround the deer. Amongst the trio only Alexander had a slightly dejected look as they moved , Jacob readied Flowing Water the plan was for both Alexander and Turner to force the deer into the direction where Jacob was waiting to swiftly kill the unsuspecting deer in one stroke. With Jacob in position, the others burst into motion while making sure not to leave too big a gap for the deer to dash through, loud rustles could be heard as the duo moved . The deer reacted to the sounds as expected and bolted away from them as fast as its four legs could carry swiftly navigating the terrain, its movement as confident as a deer could get. But confidence kills and this time it killed in the form of a swift slice from a rushing river encased into the shape of a sword, the rushing deer had no chance to dodge as it was mid stride. The head of an odd looking deer fell along with red blood spurting from where its head had sat. Essence flowed into Jacob as he saw both Alexander and Turner appeared shortly after the deer still sprinting. They came to a halt when they registered the deer lying still without its head near where Jacob stood.
Bright smiles adorned their faces as they moved to join Jacob the trio congratulated each other on a job well done before moving off to collect sticks for the duo and Jacob unfortunately finding some fallen trees to chop firewood using Flowing Water which felt like a disservice to his weapon but it was the fastest way to fill their stomach and continue looking for Brian and Riley. The trio made a campire and tried to keep the smoke as clear as possible by making a fire hole about 15cm deep with their hands and a tunnel beneath to feed it as much as possible to keep the fire burning hot, which results in a smokeless flame. This took up the better half of an hour even with motivation sitting right beside them, Turner came up with the idea and Alexander helped him to make the hole and tunnel. Jacob once again had the unfortunate task of using his sword to skin the odd looking deer and remove its innards properly, there was no need to mention the many mistakes he made along the way. Cutting into the meat while skinning, almost exploding the intestines while pulling it out due to his high strength stats and almost piercing the bladder with Flowing Water. He managed to get the deer hung up into a branch to drain it of its remaining blood, they had no fresh water from which to clean the deer so hoping any alien bacterias would be killed by the fire was the best they could hope for. After the campfire was fixed up by Alexander and Turner and the deer cleaned to the best of Jacobs’ abilities, the group set about to roasting the deer with an impromptu spit which was surprisngly sturdy for their lack of experience. When the oil started dripping from the deer, Jacob cut into its flanks and separated the meat before handing slabs of meat over to the other two. Once all three had meat in hand they bit into the meat together, the meat tasted sweet and succulent without a taste of gamey as one would expect from deer meat. It seems that instead of being bitter like ordinary deer oil, it had a more sweet and flavour enhancing aspect to it, given how good it felt to eat into the meat. Sweet moans were illicited from everyone marvelling at how well alien deer tasted,the group managed to eat up the entire deer between the three of them only bones and innards were left. The group put out the fire to remove any possibility of creating smoke and continued on the direction where the trail ended when the forest started rejunevating itself. Jacob wanted to test out the heart of the deer to see if it tastes just as good as the rest of it but more important things were calling for him so he gave up on that idea, promising himself to try it in the future.
Stolen story; please report.
As the trio continued onwards they spotted the tracks anew this time it led to a conspicous cave carved into a hill with its height just below the surrounding trees a short distance away. Immediately suspicous of the cave, they moved to hide behind the trees now lush and shrubs could be seen everywhere making the forest both a blessing and a curse, they could hide better but so could the enemies. They darted between trees as best they could looking out for traps as they did so, they made it to the tree nearest to the cave, between the tree and the cave was a distance of 200 meters.
Knowing that anything can happen within those 200 meters the group settled down to observe the surroundings best they could to see if anything or anyone could be hiding in ambush. Try as they might however nothing could be seen for the group, leaving braving the cave without information as their only option as time was still ticking and they still did not have any clues as to the identity of the abductors. They equpped themselves with makeshift torches with rags from the floaters and oil just collected from the deer made their way to the cave.
With Jacob leading the front, Alexander on the left and Turner on the right they made for an odd trio. A shorty acting as vanguard for a handsome and lithe figure on his left and a bespectacled short and well dressed academic on his right, who would have thought the shorty would be the strongest one of the lot. As they entered the cave it had a tunnel that led downwards into what can only be seen as a dark abyss that could not wait to gobble them up. Jacob shared his observations with the other two.
“The abductors most likely do not do well against light, if not their surrounding would not be so dark and gloomy instead rows of torches would be fastened onto the walls or something similar to guide their way. We can use our torches against them if so.”
“I agree we can also use the remaining deer fat to create a makeshift firewall with one of our torches this way we can stop them from chasing us afterwards.” Turner readily offered up another way to use light against the abductors.
With an impromptu plan in place the trio ventured into the dark tunnel, it did not take them long before they found the abductors. Riley and Brian could be heard screaming for help constantly as the trio made some headways into the tunnel allowing the trio to heave a sigh of relief as the two were alive and now helpfully helping the trio to locate them swiftly. After walking for another 20 minutes or so, time felt different as they continually descended into the tunnel with no way to approximate time with the Suns anymore it could even have been 40 minutes instead of 20 they had to hurry. Thankfully the screams only got louder in proportion to the time spent which gave them a way to gauge their progress and they were so close. As they turned a corner the trio saw what could only be described as a tribal sacrifice with soft glows illuminating the cave they found themselves in. The cave rose high well above 10 Jacobs the soft glow caused by crystals bigger than Brian all in clusters stuck to the walls and the ceilings creating an almost soothing atmosphere, the nice scenery was unfortunately marred by the dancing group of kobold creatures in the middle raised high up in an unlit pyre was a shouting Brian with Riley towards the left side of the pyre also shouting for help, the trio will have to rewrite their plan on the spot.